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Charles Tomlinson
Alfred Charles Tomlinson, CBE (born 8 January 1927) is an English poet, translator, academic, and artist. Life Tomlinson was born and raised in Penkhull in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. After attending Longton High School, Tomlinson read English at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied with Donald Davie. After leaving university he spent a year in Liguria in Italy, then taught in a primary school. He later became Emeritus Professor of English Poetry at the University of Bristol, England. He and his wife Brenda live in a Cotswold cottage at Ozleworth, near Wotton-under-Edge. They met as teenagers, and have two daughters and a granddaughter. He is also an artist, and In Black and White: The Graphics of Charles Tomlinson, with an introduction by Nobel prize-winner Octavio Paz, was published in 1976. Tomlinson's first book of poetry was published in 1951, and his Collected Poems was published by the Oxford University Press in 1985, followed by the Selected Poems: 1955-1997 in 1997. Charles Tomlinson's Selected Poems, his collections Skywriting, Metamorphoses and The Vineyard Above the Sea, amongst others, are all published by Carcanet Press. His latest collection Cracks in the Universe was published in May 2006 in Carcanet Press' Oxford Poets series. From 1985 through 2000 he recorded all of his published poetry for Keele University. Included are his Stoke-on-Trent poems, which are: At Stoke; The Slag Heap; Steel; Canal; Poem for My Father; John Maydew; The Hand at Callow Hill Farm; The Farmer's Wife; Black Brook; The Question; The Shaft; After a Death; Night Ride; Gladstone Street; Etruria Vale; Penkhull New Road; The Way In; The Tree; Midlands; Portrait of the Artist I; Portrait of the Artist II; The Hoard; Consolations for Double Bass; The Rich; Class; The Hawthorn in Trent Vale; Written on Water; The Marl Pits. Writing Poetry In his book Some Americans Tomlinson acknowledges his poetic debts to modern American poetry, in particular William Carlos Williams, George Oppen, Marianne Moore, and Louis Zukofsky. In his critical study Lives of Poets, Michael Schmidt observes that 'Wallace Stevens was the guiding star Tomlinson initially steered by'.Schmidt, Michael: Lives of the Poets, page 641. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 2007. Schmidt goes on to define the two characteristic voices of Tomlinson: 'one is intellectual, meditative, feeling its way through ideas' whilst the other voice engages with 'landscapes and images from the natural world'.Schmidt, Michael: Lives of the Poets, page 642. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 2007. Tomlinson's poetry often circles around these themes of place and return, exploring his native landscape of Stoke and the shifting cityscape of modern Bristol. In Against Extremity Tomlinson expresses a distrust of confessional verse and rejects the 'willed extremism of poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton'. He has been active in the field of collaborative poetry, writing renshi under the guidance of Makoto Ooka with James Lasdun and Mikiro Sasaki.Tomlinson, Charles, Makoto Ooka, James Lasdun, Hiroshi Kawasaki and Mikiro Sasaki. An extract from Departing Swallows, in Journal of Renga & Renku, issue 2, 2012. p162 Translations Tomlinson has excelled as an authoritative translator of poetry from the Russian, Spanish and Italian, including the work of Antonio Machado, Fyodor Tyutchev, César Vallejo and Attilio Bertolucci. He has collaborated with the Mexican writer Octavio Paz. He edited the seminal Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation and the Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Recognition His poetry has won international recognition and has received many prizes in Europe and the United States, including the 1993 Bennett Award from Hudson Review; the New Criterion Poetry Prize, 2002; the Premio Internazionale di Poesie Ennio Flaiano, 2001; and the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Attilio Bertolucci, 2004. He is an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and of the Modern Language Association. Charles Tomlinson was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001 for his contribution to literature. Publications Poetry *''Relations and Contraries'' (pamphlet). Hand & Flower Press, 1951. *''The Necklace''. Fantasy Press, 1955 ** (revised edition) Oxford University Press, 1966. *''Solo for a Glass Harmonica'' (limited edition). Westerham Press, 1957. *''Seeing Is Believing''. Obolensky, 1958. ** (revised edition) Oxford University Press, 1960. *''A Peopled Landscape''. Oxford University Press, 1963. *''Poems: A selection'' (with Tony Connor and Austin Clarke). Oxford University Press, 1964. *''American Scenes, and other poems''. Oxford University Press, 1966. *''The Matachines: New Mexico''. San Marcos Press, 1968. *''To Be Engraved on the Skull of a Cormorant''. Unaccompanied Serpent, 1968. *''Penguin Modern Poets 14'' (by Alan Brownjohn, Michael Hamburger, & Charles Tomlinson). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1969. *''The Way of a World''. Oxford University Press, 1969. *''America West Southwest''. San Marcos Press, 1969. * Renga: A chain of poems (in Spanish, French, Italian, and English; with Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubard, and Edoardo Sanguineti). Gallimard, 1970 ** all-English edition (translated by Tomlinson). Braziller, 1972. *''Words and Images'' (poetry and graphic art by Tomlinson). London: Covent Garden Press, 1972. *''Written on Water''. Oxford University Press, 1972. *''The Way In, and other poems''. Oxford University Press, 1974. *''The Shaft''. Oxford University Press, 1978. *''Selected Poems, 1951-1974''. Oxford University Press, 1978. *''Airborn/Hijos del aire'' (in English and Spanish, with Octavio Paz). Anvil Press, 1981. *''The Flood''., Oxford University Press, 1981. *''Notes from New York, and other poems''. Oxford University Press, 1984. *''Eden: Graphics and Poems'' (poetry and art by Tomlinson). Redcliffe Press, 1985. *''Collected Poems, 1951-1981''. Oxford University Press, 1986. ** (expanded edition) published as'' Collected Poems'', 1988. *''The Return''. Oxford University Press, 1987. *''Annunciations''. Oxford University Press, 1989. *''Selected Poems''. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1989. *''The Door in the Wall''. Oxford University Press, 1992. *''Jubilation''. Oxford University Press, 1995. *''Selected Poems, 1955-1997''. New York: New Directions, 1997. *''Vineyard Above the Sea''. Oxford, UK: Oxford Poets / Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1999. *''Skywriting''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2003. *''Crack in the Universe''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2006. *''New Collected Poems''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2009. Criticism and Essays *''The Poem as Initiation''. Colgate University Press, 1967. *''In Black and White'' (graphics). Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1976. *''Some Americans: A Personal Record''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981. *''Poetry and Metamorphosis'' (lectures). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983. *''American Essays''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2001. *''Metamorphoses: Poetry and Translation''. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2003. Translated *''Versions from Fyodor Tyutchev, 1803-1873'' (introduction by Henry C. Gifford). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1960. *''Castilian Ilexes: Versions from Antonio Machado'' (translated with Henry C. Gifford). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1963. *Cesar Vallejo, Ten Versions from Trilce (translated with Henry C. Gifford). San Marcos Press, 1970. *Octavio Paz, Paz, Selected Poems (edited & translated). Penguin, 1979. *''The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation'' (translated & compiled). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1983. Edited *Marianne Moore, A collection of critical essays. Prentice-Hall, 1969. *''Simon Cutts, A New Kind of Tie: Poems, 1965-68''. Tarasque Press, 1972. * William Carlos Williams: Critical anthology. Penguin, 1972. *William Carlos Williams, Selected poems. Penguin, 1976. Letters *''William Carlos Williams and Charles Tomlinson: A transatlantic connection'' (edited by Barry Magid and Hugh Witemeyer). New York: P. Lang, 1998.William Carlos Williams 1883-1963, Poetry Foundation, Web, June 23, 2012. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Charles Tomlinson b. 1927, Poetry Foundation, Web, July 15, 2012. Audio / video Recordings * The complete volumes from The Necklace" to The Vineyard Above the Sea. Keele University, 1985-2000 * "The Modern Age: A Conversation with Hugh Kenner", Keele University, 1988 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads His Poems", Keele University, 1985 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads His Stoke Poems", Keele University, 1985 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads His Poems on Music", Keele University, 1987 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads 'The Waste Land' by T.S.Eliot"," Keele University, 1989 * "Octavio Paz talks to Charles Tomlinson," Keele University, 1989 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads Machado and Tyutchev," Keele University, 1993 * "Charles Tomlinson Reads Selected Poems by Attilio Bertolucci," Keele University, 1995 See also * List of British poets References * O'Gorman, Kathleen. Charles Tomlinson: Man and Artist. University of Missouri Press, 1988. * Saunders, Judith P. The Poetry of Charles Tomlinson: Border Lines. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003. Notes External links ;Poems *Two poems at the Paris Review * Charles Tomlinson b. 1927 at the Poetry Foundation ;Audio / video * Charles Tomlinson (b. 1927) at The Poetry Archive *Charles Tomlinson at PennSound ;About * Charles Tomlinson at Carcanet Press * Charles Tomlinson at the British Council. * * The Charles Tomlinson Resource Centre Category:English poets Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Category:People from Penkhull Category:People from Wotton-under-Edge Category:1927 births Category:Living people Category:Cholmondeley Award winners Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Translators to English